Heidi Cohen Interviews Gini Dietrich

Q: What’s your best piece of advice for readers looking to improve their marketing?

I’ve been spending a lot of time of late focused on WHY people buy. As marketers, we tend to focus on the logical or rational reasons someone SHOULD buy, but that’s not how humans make purchase decisions. We buy on emotion so marketers should focus on that and not on the great features and benefits of their products or services.

Q: What was the inspiration for The Communicator’s Playbook?

Well… we saw an emotional need for it 🙂 . In 2017, we launched the Spin Sucks 30-Day Challenge. It was free and it was designed to help communicators create their PESO model communications program in 30 days. Every day, they received an email with a lesson and a homework assignment. By the end, they had a full plan. But what we discovered people logically want that, but without step-by-step instruction and videos to help them along, the work became too overwhelming.

Q: What is the key concept behind your book?

We launched the PESO model in 2014, when Spin Sucks, the book, was published. It’s an integrated program that allows communicators to strategically build brand authority and measure results. While most understand it intellectually, it’s hard to implement without understanding how it all works together. The Communicator’s Playbook gives them the tools they need to plan and execute well.

Q: What do you want readers to take away from your book?

I want communicators to have a strategic plan that they can execute and show a return-on-investment on by year’s end.

Q: How do you describe yourself professionally? What is your elevator pitch?

We launched Spin Sucks to change the perception that people have of the PR industry. The general perception is that we write news releases and call journalists. That could not be more wrong. Sure, that is something we do, but it’s a tiny part of what we do, particularly in this digital world. Everything we do sets out to educate the world on what public relations is, why they need it, and how they can measure it.

Q: What are 1-3 books that inspired your work/career?

The Conversion Code talks about how to generate, nurture, and convert leads through inbound marketing and inside sales. Even the most sophisticated marketers can learn from this book—I have three pages of notes from it.

Rocket Fuel talks about how visionaries and integrators can work together in a business. Though they’re very different people, they need one another. It’s a good read for any size organization, plus I’m a big fan of Gino Wickman, one of the authors. He wrote Traction, which is one of my all-time favorite books.

Q: What is the biggest challenge that you’ve had to overcome in your life or career?

The biggest? To date, it’s probably the Great Recession. That was a very challenging time for all of us and I matured as a business owner because of it. But man, it was painful!

It’s also pretty challenging to be a business owner, a mother, a wife, a housekeeper, a cook, a laundress, a cyclist, and whatever else the day throws in. The idea that women can have it all without any help is a farce!

Q: What’s something unusual or fun that most people don’t know about you?

I’m the oldest of six—I have four brothers and one sister…and I’m the shortest of all of us. Which means my nieces and nephews all think I’m the youngest and I don’t correct them.

Q: Is there a piece of content, a social media campaign or a marketing campaign that you worked on that you’re particularly proud of?

This entire interview was about it! And thank you, Heidi! We’re very proud of the work we’ve done with this book—and it’s a beast of a book.

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